I cannot say that, as a baby, Ulysses had any fore-shadowings of the brilliant destiny in store for him. It is quite possible that his fond mother regarded him as a remarkable child, if the neighbors in Georgetown did not. Certainly, in this instance, she was nearer right than loving mothers usually are, and is entitled to much credit for the justness of her view on this interesting subject. I am confident that the infant Hercules displayed some of the energy of which has distinguished his manhood--that he declined to be washed, and held on to dangerous play-things, with greater tenacity than children of tender years usually do. Still, the sacredness of historic truth does not permit me to assume that he displayed any of the traits of a great general, except the embryo of his mighty will, until he had attained his second year, when the first decided _penchant_ for the roar of artillery manifested itself on a small scale. My friend Mr. Pollard alludes to the incident in his valuable work on The Lost Cause, though, I am pained to observe, in a tone of disparagement quite unworthy of him, as a "Yankee affectation." As he seems to have no scruples in telling strange stories about Stonewall Jackson, Jeb. Stuart, and other Southern worthies, I am compelled to attribute this incredulity and ridicule to a foolish prejudice. Though I happened to be present when the event occurred,--a cosmopolitan then, as now,--I was in the arms of my maternal parent, and being only two years old at the time, I am unable to vouch for its truth on my own personal recollection; but the father of General Grant has confirmed it. "Let me try the effect of a pistol report on the baby," said a young man to the anxious parent in the street, on the fourth of July, where great numbers of people were gathered. "The child has never seen a pistol or a gun in his life," replied Mr. Grant; "but you may try it." The hand of the baby was placed on the trigger, and pressed there till the lock sprang, and the pistol went off with a loud report. The future commander-in-chief hardly moved or twitched a muscle. "Fick it again! fick it again!" cried the child, pushing away the weapon, and desiring to have the experiment repeated. "That boy will make a general; he neither winked nor dodged," added the inevitable bystander, a cosmopolitan like myself, who is ever at hand on momentous occasions. To me, the trait of character exhibited by the child is not so much the type of a taste for the rattle of musketry and the odor of gunpowder as of a higher manifestation of soldier-like qualities. After weary days and long nights of the thunder of cannon at Donelson, when ordinary generals would have been disgusted and disheartened by continued failure, Grant persevered, not knowing that he had been beaten, and in tones full of grand significance, though in speech more mature, he repeats his order,-- "Fick it again! fick it again!"